The councillor had reassured the same complainant, who wanted to remain anonymous, more than a year earlier that previous comments were not intended to be threatening, and promised not to reveal such details.

But he told the committee that he had not written the later comments, arguing other users impersonating him on fake profiles were to blame.

He has previously said that an impostor was responsible for Facebook comments calling cyclists ‘n**s’ in March.

His solicitor, Frances Randle, said the councillor did not even have an active Facebook account at the time, and that a friend had reported the fake profiles to Facebook.

She also argued that even if he were responsible, or had driven without an MOT, neither would have been “in his role as a councillor” – to which the code of conduct is restricted.

The committee’s latest decision comes after it told Cllr Gomez-Aspron to apologise over a previous incident involving social media last year.

The historic Town Hall in St Helens. Photo by Bernard Platt.

At the time it rejected the councillor’s claim that he did not know the euphemism ‘C U Next Tuesday’ was offensive, after he used it in a Facebook conversation with a resident.

Cllr Joe Pearson, committee chair, concluded at today’s meeting: “The unanimous decision of the committee is that Councillor Gomez-Aspron has not breached the code of conduct.

“We note that the council investigation was unable to determine whether he was responsible for the comments.

“On the second complaint, he made a mistake in not renewing the MOT, and as such it fails to meet the threshold for a breach of the code of conduct.”